


Small Life Lessons (And Weaponized Candy)

by ElisaPhoenix



Series: Supreme Family Chaos [90]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Car Accidents, Elemental Magic, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Gen, Harley Keener Needs a Hug, Hospitalization, Hurt Harley Keener, M/M, Magic, Mama Bear Stephen Strange, Other, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange Parenting Peter Parker | Supremefamily | Strange Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-13 15:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21158021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisaPhoenix/pseuds/ElisaPhoenix
Summary: Stephen teaches one child a life lesson and comforts another...before wanting to slap him upside the head.





	Small Life Lessons (And Weaponized Candy)

Tony was in meetings all day, Peter was at Ned's working on some new Lego set and watching Star Wars for the billionth time, and Harley was at a friend's house as well. It left Stephen and Diana home by themselves, and the little girl wanted to spend time with the sorcerer instead of Cassie. He had things to do at Kamar-Taj and he told her so, and Diana was more than happy to accompany him. So while he taught a few classes and did his routine checks of the compound, his daughter followed at his heels. After all was said and done, they sat in the main room and Diana sat in front of him with her hands palms up and resting gently in his. She only showed a single ability of telekinesis, but he was curious to know if she had any other powers at her disposal. In case her ability to control magic wasn't natural though, he opened the mirror dimension around them so she wouldn't cause permanent damage if anything were to happen or she lost control.

"We're going to try something today...see if you have any other magic." Stephen tells her softly, his voice echoing in the mirror dimension.  
"What if I don't?"  
"Then that's perfectly fine. Your magic doesn't make you who you are."  
Diana looks up at him, scrutinizing him carefully. "It makes you who you are though."  
Stephen smiles. "Are you sure about that?"  
"Aren't you the Sorcerer Supreme?" She asks and he nods.  
"Yes, but that's not all. What am I to _you_?"  
"My mommy." Diana replies immediately.  
"I am many things. A master of the mystic artes, a mother, a friend, a doctor, a husband-" Stephen chuckles when his daughter corrects him by saying 'wife', and continues. "My point is that you are what you make of yourself, and it doesn't have to be one thing. I may be the Sorcerer Supreme to the students and masters here, but to you I am not."  
"So even if I don't have more magic…"  
"You are still my daughter. You could lose your magic and it would remain that way." Stephen looks down at Diana's hands. "Focus on your hands." Diana looks down at her hands. "Now, I want you to imagine a small flame."

Moments pass in silence as Diana stares at her hands, but when nothing happens over that time, Stephen notices his daughter slowly getting frustrated. Her eyebrows were scrunched together, her face was pinched, and she was actually glaring at her hands. The sorcerer figured that he didn't word his request correctly and clears his throat to get her attention again.

"Nothing's happening."  
"That's because you're thinking too hard, and I miscommunicated what I wanted you to do. Instead, think about how you started using your telekinesis. Did you think about it?"  
"No. I couldn't reach one of my coloring books, but I really wanted it and then it flew off the shelf and into my hands." She explains and Stephen raises an eyebrow.  
"Try _wanting_ the flame in your hands then."

Diana nods and looks back down at her hands, and not even five seconds later, a small ember hovers over one of her hands. His daughter's eyes widen in surprise and excitement, and Stephen's widen in realization. She really did use her heart to control her magic and from the small test, Tony could actually be right about Diana having natural control. She gave Stephen exactly what he asked for. A small flame and nothing more. There was no spark building up to it or overgrown flames, just one small flame. She didn't have a mean bone in her body, so even when she fought with the boys, she never wanted to hurt them. Or anyone for that matter.

"Try a single drop of water in your other hand." Stephen requests and a second later, Diana's other hand contained the one drop. "Have you ever wanted to use your powers for anything?"  
"No. Just to get something in my room that I can't reach...or to help me color."  
"What about to hurt your brothers?"  
Diana actually glared scathingly at him for his question and pulled her hands out of his after making the water and fire disappear. "No! They make me mad sometimes but I don't want to hurt them!"  
Stephen holds up his own hands to placate her. "I just want to know how much control you have."  
Diana pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs. "I asked Uncle Quill about his powers before. I asked him how he knew when Uncle Scott was the one walking up to him when he's really angry."  
"And what did he tell you?" Stephen asks quietly.  
"He said he uses his heart to control his powers. Is that real? Do you do that too?"  
"To an extent yes. Some magic I do have to think about to make sure it will be useful for what I'm trying to do, but otherwise, I know I want to use it to protect or help people. When I'm really sad, I can't use my magic, and that's why I like to cuddle you and your brothers." Stephen explains as Diana unfurls herself and climbs into the sorcerer's lap.  
"Because we make you happy?"  
"Very happy." He confirms and gently combs his fingers through her hair. "Just like Uncle Quill loves Uncle Scott and Cassie, Wanda loves Vision and the team, and I love your father and you kids."  
Diana giggles. "And Uncle Loki loves Uncle Thor even though he won't admit it. They remind me of Peter and Harley."  
Stephen snorts. "It's a brother thing. I was like that with my brother too."  
"That's dumb."

Stephen bursts into laughter. Diana wasn't wrong, but some people have trouble expressing their feelings to others. Peter technically wore his heart on his sleeve but he always stumbled over words because he was just awkward like that. Everyone knew though, especially because he was a little better about his expressing his feelings through actions. Just a little. Harley was strictly expressing his feelings through actions...and Diana easily did both. Verbal and action. She was a little girl that didn't give a single shit though.

The sorcerer's laughter tapers off as be dismisses the mirror dimension and his bracelet beeps loudly just as his cell phone vibrates in his pocket. He asks Diana to move so he can get to it, and the moment he accepts the call from Christine he sighs a little dramatically.

"For the last time Christine, I'm not-"  
"Stephen! Harley's here!" The woman informs him frantically and Stephen immediately sobers up. Her tone definitely didn't bode well.  
"What happened?!"  
"Hit and run. I tried calling you and Tony earlier but neither of you answered."  
"I'll be there in a moment."

Stephen ends the call and jumps to his feet before opening a gateway to the Metro General Hospital's janitorial closet, and Diana follows immediately. She sticks to his side as he uses his magic to change his robes into his street clothes, and closes the gateway before leading his daughter out of the closet. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have bothered changing, but there was a strong possibility that disrespectful reporters caught wind of one of Tony Stark's kids being in the hospital and Stephen didn't want to garner any more attention than necessary if at all. They weren't legally allowed into the hospital without permission but one or two always managed to slip in.

"Stephen!" Christine calls from the nurse's station and he rushes over to her, accepting the clipboard she hands him.  
"Did he need surgery?"  
"He had some internal bleeding but nothing severe. I just finished when I called you again."

A broken leg, broken arm, a couple of cracked ribs, but thankfully nothing more serious than the minor internal bleeding that Christine had told him about. His first reaction was to sigh with relief that his oldest got off relatively lucky, and his second was to think about how miserable Harley was going to be. That in turn was going to make Stephen miserable because he hated to see his kids hurt, and he knew Harley was going to try and take care of himself. 

"What room is he in?" Stephen asks and Christine points down the hall.  
"Closest one to this station. I wanted to keep a close eye on his room for obvious reasons."  
"_Thank you._" The sorcerer herds Diana over to the room Harley is in after handing the charts back and kneels down to look at her. "Your brother got hurt, but no matter how bad he might look, he's going to be okay. Understand?"  
"Yes."

Stephen stands back up and opens the door as quietly as possible into the private room, and Diana sits in one of the chairs as he makes his way over to Harley's bedside. The next hour passed quietly, with only the sounds of quiet scratching from Diana's crayons as she drew (Christine had brought her some blank paper and crayons to keep her occupied twenty minutes into their wait), and Tony rushed in at the end of that hour. He looked frazzled and worried, but Stephen quickly soothed his husband before he could open his mouth.

"He's going to be okay."  
"I somehow accidently turned FRIDAY off. I didn't see the SOS from SARA until I turned her back on twenty minutes ago. Has he woken up?" Tony manages to spit out and Stephen shakes his head. "Do we know who did it?"  
"No. It was a hit and run."  
Tony growls quietly and pulls out his phone. "Not for long." He walks over to the table Diana is at and sits in the chair across from her. "What are you doing there Little Miss?"  
"Making Harley a card." Diana replies quietly as she draws a teddy bear onto the front of said card.  
"That's a good girl. Daddy's gonna find who did this so they get the punishment they deserve."  
"Good."

The coldness in her voice had both Tony and Stephen staring at their daughter in surprise. She had never acted like this before, but it was possible that she didn't feel the need to because whenever someone in their dysfunctional family got hurt, team included, someone else was already getting angry. Right now though, it was just her and her parents, and Stephen was keeping vigil at Harley's side, and Tony was already searching through cameras to find the one responsible for hitting their son. He cringed a couple of minutes into his search and that's all Stephen needed to know that his husband came across the accident.

A sharp inhale pulls Stephen's attention back to their oldest child, and Harley winces before slowly blinking his eyes open. To his surprise, the teen slowly reaches up to him and grips the front of his shirt, tugging weakly in a silent request for Stephen to lay down, and the sorcerer obliges immediately. Harley moves to the side so Stephen can settle on his side as comfortably as possible, and then moves back to curl into the sorcerer's chest.

"Better?" Stephen asks quietly and Harley nods once. "How are you feeling?"  
"Like I got hit by a car." The teen mutters.  
"Well you're not wrong."  
Harley looks around the room and frowns. "This isn't the med bay."  
"No. It's Metro General. Thankfully Christine was on duty. I'll talk to her about transferring you to the tower in a little bit. Just rest for now."  
"'Kay…"

Harley dozed off after that, and when Stephen finally got around to asking Christine for the transfer, she asked to keep him overnight just in case. The sorcerer only agreed as long as someone (him) could stay with him for the night, and Christine allowed it, even though they both knew Stephen was going to stay whether she liked it or not. She didn't mind though, and Stephen stayed overnight, leaving Tony to take their daughter home. Peter wasn't aware of the accident until he got home later that night, felt kind of awful that he wasn't at the hospital to sit with his brother, and ended up in the medbay as soon as Stephen brought Harley home. The oldest teen was more lucid than he was the day before, so Peter kept him company with games and movies.

Tony had found the culprit soon after he and Diana got home and sent the evidence to the proper authorities, and Diana finished her card. She gave it to Harley with the teen's favorite candies that Cassie had sent up for him (she didn't want to overwhelm him), and he genuinely smiled at the gesture. 

"Thanks Dia."  
"Sissy got you the candy."  
"I'm eating it all right now." Harley says with a grin and whines when Stephen takes the majority of it away. "Mom!"  
"You need proper food as well or you won't heal any faster."  
"Maybe I wanna be a crip for longer than usual!"  
Stephen snorts. "We all know you're going to go stir crazy by the end of the night you insufferable cub."  
"That's probably true. Can I at least have a second bag?" Harley asks and Stephen sighs before handing over another small bag of candy. The boy was hurting and did ask somewhat nicely. "No the gummy worms!"  
"I am literally handing you gummy bears."  
"I want the worms!"  
Stephen sighs and switches the bears for the worms, and Harley rips into the bag. "What difference does it make?"  
"All the difference in the world!" The sorcerer tilts his head in confusion as Harley seemingly jumbles a couple of worms together, and then suddenly, he uses his gummy makeshift slingshot to shoot an M&M at Stephen's forehead. "I can't do that with the bears!"  
"...I'm sending you back to Christine."

Stephen walks out of the medbay, leaving all three children behind laughing hysterically. He should have known Harley would find a way to weaponize _candy_. At the very least, it would keep him occupied for a little while and they could send Steve in to clean the mess. He was next on the cleaning list for breaking one of the windows after all.

**Author's Note:**

> No, Harley would not let a broken arm keep him from using his candy slingshot.


End file.
